this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
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Electric Vehicles

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Electric Vehicles are a key part of our tomorrow and how we get there. If we can get all the fossil fuel vehicles off our roads, out of our seas and out of our skies, we'll have a much better environment. This community is where we discuss the various different vehicles and news stories regarding electric transportation.

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[–] bassomitron@lemmy.world 105 points 2 months ago (10 children)

Yikes, even Rivians are having similar issues, so this isn't exclusive to these shitty trucks. Guess weighing 7,000+ LBs isn't great for daily commuting, who'da thunk. I hate America's obsession with huge trucks as their daily drivers. Whatever happened to smaller Ford Ranger type trucks? That way you still have the convenience of a truck when needed without the utter waste that the big ass trucks create for city driving.

[–] takeda@lemmy.world 47 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Whatever happened to smaller Ford Ranger type trucks?

I could be wrong, but I heard it was emission regulations that happened.

As the emission standards became stricter, the truck manufacturers started producing bigger trucks as they had more lax emission requirements.

[–] Poach@lemmy.world 22 points 2 months ago

Fuel efficiency standards are more relaxed for a vehicle with a larger "footprint". So that incentivizes larger vehicles because it's easier to pass MPG standards.

[–] Ross_audio@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You're right. But it's more that emissions standards didn't happen.

Cars got them while trucks got them much, much less. So they build more trucks and fewer cars.

They should just have a road tax based on weight and an emissions tax based on emissions. Not emissions per class twice removed just CO2 per mile. All vehicles.

Roads get maintained by the weight tax, emissions tax to fund decarbonisation of the economy.

[–] deo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 months ago (4 children)

But instead they're charging me an extra $100 to renew my tags for my hybrid sedan. If i had a full electric, it would be $200 extra.

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[–] gusgalarnyk@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

It's partially that, the fact that instead of making the trucks more efficient they made them larger to skirt the regulation, but another factor is the profitability of larger trucks. It doesn't cost them that much more to make a massive truck vs a reasonable vehicle but the target market for unnecessarily large trucks is willing to pay hand over fist for them and so the manufacturers and distributors make more money per sale by a large margin.

So when you see a large truck, don't just think "someone who's compensating" but also think "someone who got fleeced".

The roads would be safer without massive trucks, no one should be above ridicule.

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[–] bizarroland@fedia.io 21 points 2 months ago (6 children)

The modern Ford ranger is the same size as the F-150 from 2004.

Now if you want to buy a Ford ranger size truck you have to buy the Ford Maverick, which costs ~$35,000.

It's fucking madness and I don't know a single company that hasn't lost the plot.

[–] xpinchx@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Tbf I bought a new GTI in 2017 for 22k. I just checked and 2024 MSRP is 33k.

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[–] ceiphas@lemmy.world 17 points 2 months ago (9 children)

Or - hear me Out - don't drive a Truck at all. It's easy, just drive a car that ist meant to drive in cities, and not in a desert.

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[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago

Whatever happened to smaller Ford Ranger type trucks?

Oddly enough, environmental regulations happened. When the government was pushing for fuel economy regulation, the auto manufacturers were scared. They managed to talk the government into adding an exception where as wheel base increases, fuel economy is allowed to drop.

If you don’t see the loophole in this, you wouldn’t the only one. After all, it sounds fine on the surface; large trucks need more fuel… Right? But it means that auto manufacturers pivoted to almost universally making (and marketing) larger SUVs and trucks, because their quality control can be much more lax when they aren’t trying to hit strict emissions and efficiency milestones. Their profit margins on large vehicles are much higher. Like 20-40% higher, because they’re easier to produce and sell for more. They’re able to get away with much more when the vehicle is larger, so they heavily leaned into the “larger cars are better” marketing.

[–] Sludgehammer@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago

Yikes, even Rivians are having similar issues, so this isn’t exclusive to these shitty trucks.

That being said, given the sheer number quality control problems with the Cybertruck I'm not willing to discount there being some sort of manufacturing defect contributing to tire problems. Like maybe Telsa didn't give the right specs to Goodyear, or maybe they cheaped out on the materials used, or Elon got involved and demanded that ketamine needed to be mixed into the rubber or something.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Whatever happened to smaller Ford Ranger type trucks?

Ford's compact truck is called the Maverick now. Unfortunately, it's actually an Ute (like an El Camino) not a real truck, because it's unibody instead of body-on-frame, but it's the closest we're gonna get. Honda and Hyundai also make kinda-small unibody kinda-trucks, by the way.

Really small trucks, like '80s Nissan P'ups and VW Rabbit Pickups, continue to no longer exist.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The El Camino was body on frame, it was a "real" truck!

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

They still make the Ranger, and the Colorado, and the Tundra, but those mid-sized trucks are all the size of full-sized trucks of yesteryear.

[–] BigPotato@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

There's the Maverick these days...

Not much else though.

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[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 58 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Extremely heavy + low-end torque = bald tires, pronto!

But if you can afford this, you should not be cheaping out on the tires. Who would spend so much to ignore maintenance?

[–] ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 27 points 2 months ago

Who would spend so much to ignore maintenance?

I am firmly convinced the more something costs vs it's useful value, the less the owner actually cares about it beyond the "bling" factor.

So, a $150k "truck" that is as useful as a $40k truck, likely is just owned as a "look at me, I'm rich" and the owner doesn't care if it breaks, just that they are considered "rich" among their peers.

[–] curiousaur@reddthat.com 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Can you be charged for manslaughter if you drive a car with worn tires that causes an accident that kills someone? I sure hope so for all our sake.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

We're lucky if people get charged for manslaughter when they run somebody over deliberately. And if the person they kill is a cyclist, we're lucky if they get charged with anything at all.

So, realistically, no. 😡

[–] bizarroland@fedia.io 8 points 2 months ago

Theoretically yes, but it depends on the capabilities of the police officers at the scene to deduce that the fatal accident was likely caused by the quality of your tires and any prosecuting attorneys or lawyers attached to the accident after the fact.

[–] BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There is only one tire that fits on that shitty rim as far as i know

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[–] bizarroland@fedia.io 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I am looking forward to lighter weight batteries with larger drive range that should be coming out in the near future but I'm also holding off on getting an electric vehicle until these issues are sorted out.

Plus, one of the largest sources of pollution in the form of forever chemicals comes from vehicle tires so we definitely need to fucking work on that.

I've always been told Charles Goodyear was a really great guy and a hard-working inventor and I feel like he would be rolling over in his grave to know that the reason why so many fish are dying out is because of his invention.

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 6 points 2 months ago

I too am very concerned about pollution from tire particles. Although, I can't even begin to consider electric anyway because there's no infrastructure in my area, and I can't get permission to install a charger.

forever chemicals

Do tyres contain PFAS? I thought that the fish issue was that some of the rubber additives mimicted fish hormones.

[–] HootinNHollerin@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago
[–] BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee 52 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Some of these tires outlast the truck, so there is that

[–] madcaesar@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

🎶 Always look on the bright side of life.. Dududududdudutudu 🎶

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 17 points 2 months ago (6 children)

My first thought when I hears that was, oh, that's not bad, that's about what I get out of a set of Pirelli Angel STs. ...Except that's a sport touring motorcycle tire. I usually go through at least one set of tires each year on my motorcycle, but it's been three years or so for the tires on my car.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Truck tires should last 60,000 miles.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago (8 children)

Okay, so, the curb weight of a Ford F-250 is 7400#, while the curb weight of of Tesla Cybertruck is 6900#. That's a 500# difference, with the Ford being heavier. If it's the weight alone, then the Tesla should have better tire life than the Ford, and I strongly suspect that's not the case. Perhaps Tesla is spec'ing a softer compound tire in order to actually use the enormous amounts of torque that is available to it?

I know that off-road tires tend to die fairly quickly when used on the road--softer compound + less contact patch at any given time--but it doesn't appear that they're using off-road tires on the Teslas.

So what's going on here? Why are they burning through expensive tires so fast?

[–] cmhe@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I am not from the US, and was surprised to see the number (hash) mark used to denote pounds, not just a number.

BTW, next year it will be 50 years after the metric system was stated as the preferred system for weights and measurements for US trade and commerce by law. Still not quite there yet, it seems.

[–] bitchkat@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

We were on our way and then in 1980 we elected Reagan and effectively canceled the conversion to metric.

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[–] Nougat@fedia.io 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If you want more life out of a tire, you need to manufacture it with a harder compound, but you sacrifice dry performance. If you want better dry performance from a tire, you need to manufacture it with a softer compound, but you sacrifice treadwear.

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

So this was basically the trade-off made to get off the line faster, which is really pointless in real world use. Seems like a common thread with this thing.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Dry performance is also handling... If you don't want those 7k pounds "trucks" driving off the road when taking a curve then softer compound it is.

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[–] TenderfootGungi@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Semi tires last a lot longer than that and semis weigh far more. Surely appropriate tires exist?

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[–] over_clox@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

It's amazing that dumpster tires would last that long in the first place.

[–] rainynight65 8 points 2 months ago

I'm sorry, what? The tyres last a mere 6000 miles, or less than 10000km?

The first set of tyres on my regular SUV got me to 80000km (almost 50000 miles). If I get less than 60000km out of the second set I'll be somewhat irritated.

The service interval on my car is 15000km. At the mileage I'm doing that's twice a year. There's no way I'd be buying three sets of tyres each year. Fuck that car.

[–] stress_headache@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

So 5k more than the truck itself?

[–] Kayday@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Electric vehicles are notoriously hard on tires, since the high torque motors don't have as gradual of a buildup to momentum. That combined with the heavier load would absolutely kill treadlife, I imagine.

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